Black Contract

by Charlotte Byrd

  I pull myself off the couch, about to head back to my bathroom. But the nausea feeling overwhelms me and I run into the bathroom in the hallway instead. This was technically Caroline’s bathroom, but it was also the one that guests used when they came over. As I throw up, it occurs to me that I haven’t been in here since Caroline died. This realization makes me even more sick to my stomach. Afterward, sitting on the closed toilet, I look under the sink. It’s filled with all the things that Caroline used that her mom didn’t take with her. Caroline’s hairdryer. Extra hand soap and shampoo and conditioner. Her scale. And there in the back is the unopened box with two pregnancy tests.

  I open the box and take one out. I don’t need to read the instructions. I’ve taken one before in college. It showed what my period confirmed later that day that I wasn’t pregnant.

  This is so stupid, I say to myself. There’s no way I’m pregnant. I just have some stupid stomach flu. People get them all the time.

  But why not take it anyway? They’re here. Available. If it’s not a big deal, then why not do it?

  I take a deep breath.

  “Okay, if you’re going to do it, do it now before you have to throw up again,” I say. I open the package and pull down my panties. After I pee on the stick, I turn back around and get sick again. It takes a few minutes for the test to show the results and I wait lying on my back on the cold tiles. Then I reach up for the test and look at the screen.

  “Pregnant.”

  Chapter 22 - Aiden

  When I take off…

  I leave Ellie’s apartment fuming. How does she not understand that I was just trying to help her? It’s not like I wanted to reveal Caroline’s secret. But it’s something that had to be done. Besides, if Caroline didn’t want anyone to know that she actually killed herself, why did she leave a note? No, she wanted everyone to know the truth. Maybe she didn’t want her mom to know, but she wanted someone to know. She wanted Ellie to know. She probably wanted Tom to know as well. He’s the one who is largely responsible for her suicide. He was the one who violated her. Killing herself was her way of not dealing with the pain he’d caused her any longer. Fuck, it just breaks my heart that she did this. It also makes me want to kill Tom. Or at the very least, beat the daylights out of him.

  It starts to rain. I pull the collar of my jacket tighter around my neck to keep some of the chill away from me. Unfortunately, it does fuck all. Taking a walk in the fresh air seemed like a good idea only ten minutes earlier, but now I willfully regret the decision. As much as I try to put everything that just happened at Ellie’s out of my mind, my thoughts just keep drifting back. How can she not understand? The reason that I talked to the District Attorney is that I didn’t want Caroline’s death to be in vain. I didn’t want an asshole like Tom walking the streets among us. He needs to be punished for what he did. Or at the very least, people need to learn the truth about him. If I just let the letter go and bury it along with Caroline, Tom stays out there in the world, free to do something like this to another woman. No, I couldn’t have that. The main witness against Tom is no longer available to testify against him. So, without the letter, the DA would have no choice but to drop the case. And now? Well, now there’s at least hope.

  I walk the last few blocks with my head in the clouds. Everything that made perfect sense just a few hours ago, no longer makes any sense at all. The cold air, which is supposed to clear my head, just makes it all that much worse. I clench my fists. Anger is building up deep within me, the kind that burns slowly, and the kind that I don’t really know how to deal with at all. And the worst thing? It’s directed at Ellie. I’m angry with her. Mostly angry, but also disappointed. Why is she being so obtuse? Is it deliberate? Why can’t she meet me halfway on this? How dare she kick me out? Just as things were starting to look up.

  Perhaps I’m not cut out for relationships. Or at least this one. Should things really be this hard? I mean, we haven’t been dating that long. And we’ve already endured all of this drama. No, it’s just too hard.

  “Hey!” someone yells as I turn the corner. My building is within view, at the end of the block, and I’m not in the mood to make small talk with some stranger.

  “Hey!” the guy says again. Against my better judgement, I turn around. A gale force wind slams into my face. I put my hand up to block some of the wind and rain so I can see who’s trying to get my attention.

  “You’re such an asshole, you know that, Aiden?” the guy says, stepping out of the shadow.

  “What are you doing here, Blake?” I ask. He takes a step back. His footing is uneasy and he nearly falls, catching himself on the wall.

  “Hey!” he says again, slurring his words. As he leans closer to me, a strong odor of alcohol slams into my face.

  “Go home. You’re drunk.”

  “I will not go…home.”

  “Fine,” I say, turning away from him. “I am.”

  Just as I’m about to walk away, he grabs my shoulder.

  “Where are you going?” he asks. “You think you can get me fired and then…then what? Just go away?”

  I shrug him off, but he refuses to let me go. Instead, he grabs me by my neck and presses my face toward his.

  “You…got me…fired, you ass…hole,” he mumbles.

  I grab his hands and peel him away from me. Once I free my neck, I give him a strong shove. He bounces back a few steps and braces himself against the wall.

  “I’m not going to talk about this right now,” I say. “You’re drunk. If you want to discuss this later, give me a call.”

  “Fine, I…will,” he says. “Don’t think I won’t.”

  This time I don’t wait for him to grab onto me again. I turn up my collar and walk toward my building. Anger, which has been growing within me, bubbles toward the surface. But it’s no longer aimed at Ellie. No, my anger is directed entirely at Blake. Who does he think he is? Why the fuck is he stalking me? Showing up near my house? All the shit that he did to Ellie and to me…and he’s blaming me? All I see is red.

  A few minutes later, I get home and pour myself a glass of whiskey. As the dark, soothing liquid runs down my throat, I start to feel a little better. My anger dissipates a little bit and is quickly replaced with just a general feeling of loss and disappointment. There was a time, not that long ago, when Blake was a friend. And not just a friend, a really close friend. My best friend. We have been friends since Yale. He was the one person who was there with me when I started Owl, my company. He was there through its meteoric rise. And yet, he was the one who was largely responsible for my downfall. In fact, he was the instrumental actor who caused my downfall. But why? During all that time that I thought we were close friends, did he secretly hate me?

  The intercom rings. When I answer, the doorman says that it’s Blake Garrison here to see me.

  “Don’t let him up,” I say. I’m about to hang up, when I hear some commotion on the other end.

  “You asshole! You think you can just take my job?” Blake yells into the phone. He must’ve grabbed it away from the doorman. “You’re going to pay for this! You and your slut girlfriend. You’re both going to be sorry when I’m through with you!”

  Chapter 23 - Ellie

  When my head stops buzzing…

  This can’t be real. Pregnant? Me. I look down at the test. This isn’t one of those one line or two line tests. What happens if one of them is faint? No, this test is pretty clear. The words appear in black and white.

  Pregnant.

  Pregnant!

  Fucking pregnant!!!

  I can’t breathe. My muscles seize up and no air comes in or out of my throat. A moment later, I start to cough. Little ripples thrust through my whole body, shaking me uncontrollably. Just when I think it’s over with, and I can finally catch my breath, I feel it come on again. The vomit. I lean over the toilet and spit out what is left of my insides.

  This can’t be real. No, no, no. How can this happen? We were so careful. I am on the pill and I’
ve been taking it religiously. It’s about the only thing I’ve been doing religiously. After brushing my teeth for what feels like the millionth time, I head into the kitchen and open the refrigerator. I feel like I want to eat something, but nothing looks good, or even mildly appetizing. No, it’s all so… gross. Somewhere in the back of the cupboard next to the stove, that Caroline and I referred to as our pantry, I find an opened pack of dry saltine crackers. Caroline, who has always been terrified of carbohydrates, as if they were poison, kept these stashed away in the back in case of emergencies. Alcohol poisoning, dry heaving, unable to get off the bathroom floor type of emergencies.

  As I pop one in my mouth, tears start to stream down my face. Suddenly, I miss Caroline more than I ever missed anyone before. I want to see her. I need to talk to her. I don’t really have any other friends. She’s the only person I can really talk to about this. And Aiden? No, I’m not ready for that.

  “Caroline,” I say out loud. My voice is slow and unsteady. I’ve never talked to a dead person before, but it feels good just to say her name again. “Caroline, I’m so, so sorry. I should’ve been here for you. I should’ve stuck around not just run off to the Caribbean with my boyfriend. I knew that you needed help and I just didn’t care.”

  That’s not entirely true, of course. If Caroline would’ve told me how she felt or acted more out of it, I would’ve never gone. But she didn’t. She pretended to be fine. She acted as if everything was okay.

  “You should’ve gone with me. I knew you wanted to. And we could’ve taken you out of your head. Then, maybe…you’d still be here.”

  I wait for her to answer even though I know that I won’t hear anything. After a few minutes, I continue.

  “And now? What the hell am I supposed to do now, Caroline? The test says I’m pregnant. But…that can’t be. I’m too young. I’m not ready. Aiden and I…well, I love him but that doesn’t mean I want to have a kid with him.”

  I pace around the room aimlessly. Now, I’m no longer waiting for a response. No. Now, I’m just ranting out loud like a crazy person. But just putting my thoughts into words is making me feel a little better.

  “Why the hell are you not here, Caroline? I need you. I need you to tell me what to do. And if not that, just to listen to me. I don’t know what to do, Caroline.” I break down and slump to the floor. Tears stream down my cheeks. “I don’t know what to do.”

  I’m no longer able to speak. My voice cracks and disappears entirely. I wrap my arms around my knees and lie down in a fetal position and just cry until no more tears come. I cry for my best friend. I cry for myself. I cry for the unborn baby that I’m carrying within me. And at the end, I cry for Aiden. I don’t know what he will say, or do, in response to this, and I don’t want to find out.

  I stay on the floor until I lose all sense of time. Seconds become minutes and then probably hours. The texture of the light that streams through my window changes, but I don’t recognize it as either morning, afternoon, evening, or night. And just as everything seems far away and lost forever, I turn over. My shoulders hurt from lying on the cold hard floor as I prop myself up with my hands and sit up.

  “Okay, Ellie. You can do this,” I say to myself. I don’t really believe it, but then I manage to stand up.

  Good job. Now, walk over to kitchen counter and make yourself some tea. Unlike a stream of consciousness, in which you barely acknowledge each word but just do things on instinct, these thoughts are completely different. They are actual, deliberate sentences with carefully chosen words. I have to say them to myself, otherwise, I couldn’t do it.

  The water in the kettle boils and I dunk an herbal tea bag a few times, watching it as it first floats to the surface and then slowly sinks to the bottom of the cup. The hot water feels soothing going down my throat, and it helps me to focus. Right now, the problem is not that I have too many thoughts running through my mind, but actually the opposite. My mind is completely blank. It’s as if my brain is entirely empty and I need to think just to fill it with something, anything.

  Before I go freaking out about the results of this pregnancy test, I need to make sure that I’m actually pregnant. Drug store tests are notorious for their false positives. Right? I heard that somewhere once. So, before I start imagining all sorts of eventualities and possible outcomes and decisions that I might have to make, I have to first make sure that this is accurate. Verifiable. True. And I have to get this confirmation before I tell Aiden. Because, as of right now, there’s nothing really to tell.

  Chapter 24 - Ellie

  When I have to go there…

  I’ve never been to see a gynecologist before. It’s kind of pathetic, I know. But as I sit here in this little office with no ventilation, I realize that this is actually quite true. The thing is that I hate doctors. I’ve always hated going to see doctors since I was little, and dentists, so when I came of age, I just never went. Some girls have been going since they were in their teens, to get prescriptions for birth control pills, but I just bought it from a friend. It seemed so much easier that way. Frankly, I don’t even know why they force you to see a doctor before giving a prescription for birth control pills. I mean, c’mon. Condoms can be bought just about anywhere, so why not pills?

  Of course, I’m terribly embarrassed over this whole thing. It’s not something anyone knows, except for Caroline of course. And she took this info to the grave with her. The other thing that I really hate about doctors’ offices is that I have to deal with all of this insurance crap just to get in. It’s not enough to just look up a list of doctors online in a particular specialty and read their reviews to see if it’s someone I want to see. No, I also have to check if they are in my network and how much I would have to pay for a co-pay. I already pay $500 a month for my health insurance, but in addition to that, I also have to pay a $70 copay for the visit. As soon as I arrived, they gave me a clipboard with four pages of questions to answer about my health history. Of course, there was that all frightening when was the date of your last period? Question, which I never have a good answer for and today is no exception. For some reason, this question appeared on every form that I filled out at Yale’s health clinic - the last place where I saw a physician, even when I just went in with a cold in search for a prescription for some strong antibiotics.

  I browse through the magazines as I wait to be called. There are two other women who are waiting with me. One is visibly pregnant and another is trying to get her fussy baby to sleep. Fussy. Now, there’s a word. A particularly kind word actually. A more accurate description of this baby, however, would be screaming. Angry. Incredibly upset. The woman looks frazzled. Her hair is disheveled and she is without a smidge of makeup. She is dressed in sweats and there’s spit up or throw up or some other white substance near her shoulders. I glance over at the pregnant woman. She is staring at the new mother and looks terrified. After a few minutes, she asks her how old her baby is and comments on how cute it is. Frankly, it doesn’t look particularly cute to me, but what the hell do I know? I bury my nose in the latest issue of Oprah magazine, which talks about setting goals for your dreams to make them a reality.

  Dreams. Now, there’s a far off concept. Not long ago, my dream was to become a writer. All I wanted was for people to read my stories and enjoy them. Making a little bit of money off them would’ve been a perk. But getting married? Having a kid? Buying a house in the suburbs? Something tells me that this is not the kind of dream that the O Magazine article is referring to. No, these kinds of things are just mundane, run of the mill things that happen to everyone right? Or most people, I guess. Perhaps, there are people out there who dream of these things. But me? No, thank you. That’s not what I want. At least, not right now. No, that’s the last thing I want, actually. What I really want is to see my books on top of the charts. I want more and more people buying them. I want to get them into bookstores and to see them on shelves. I want to be interviewed on TV about them. I want to be written up in O Magazine as a recommende
d read.

  Fucking hell. I put the magazine up to my face so that the two women in the waiting room don’t see me, in case I start crying. What the hell am I doing here? I can’t be pregnant. And even if I am, I don’t want this baby. This is the last thing I want. I don’t want to spend my days and nights taking care of some other human being. Some helpless, completely dependent, incompetent person who can’t even hold up his or her head. No, thank you. That kind of life isn’t for me.

  “Ellie Rhodes?” A woman with a clipboard opens the door to the waiting room and invites me to the back. My heart is racing and I feel like I’m about to hyperventilate. Then I feel sick to my stomach.

  “I think I’m going to throw up,” I say.

  “The bathroom is right through there. When you’re done, please write your name on the paper cup and pee in it. Then place it on the pass through window ledge. We will need to confirm whether you are, or are not, pregnant.”

  I barely finish listening to her instructions before I disappear into the bathroom. After I throw up, yet again, I do as she says. I place my cup on the ledge, wash my hands, and walk outside.

  Chapter 25 - Ellie

  When I get help…

  I leave the gynecologist’s office in a daze, her words still ringing in my ears. I feel like I’m both floating on air and being chained to the ground by some invisible force. I head straight to the pharmacy at the end of the corner. Do I need to get a confirmation of a confirmation? How accurate is the pregnancy test at the doctor’s office, anyway?

  Just then a new wave of nausea comes over me. I bend over a trashcan and dry heave for a few minutes. A few people slow down when walking past me, but no one stops. This is New York at its best. I actually don’t mind. If I weren’t so sick, I’d be mortified. But right now, nothing else comes to mind except for what is the fastest way that I can get home so that I can lie down. After all of this throwing up, I finally come to the realization that what makes the nausea that much worse is actually being physically upright.